Levy OK means changes in plans

All-day kindergarten and busing will be back in the district.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
SALEM -- The Salem Board of Education has begun to undo planned cuts in the wake of its levy victory.
Superintendent Stephen Larcomb on Monday withdrew his recommendation that pupils pay for extracurricular and co-curricular activities starting next fall. The board had not acted on the plan.
About 58 percent of district voters earlier this month approved a 4.3-mill levy for five years. The Columbiana County Board of Elections is expected to have the official tally Friday. The levy is expected to bring in $1.3 million a year.
The board voted to reinstate all-day kindergarten next fall. Kindergarten teachers will be reinstated in July once the district knows its enrollment figures for the 2006-07 school year. The board had also approved lists of teaching and nonteaching workers that would have been eliminated if the levy didn't pass.
The board also reinstated and improved on its busing program, which it cut in January of this year to state minimums. The new policy will allow for one mile for transportation for pupils in kindergarten through sixth grades and 1.5 miles for all others.
Buildings
The aging Prospect Elementary School and Salem Middle School will still be closed before the next school year under another cost-cutting plan. David K. Schwartz of Salem has been investigating turning the middle school into condos.
Junior and senior high students will all go to the high school. The elementary pupils will go to the district's other elementary schools.
Larcomb said the new policy is an improvement since the old policy was one-mile transportation for grades K-6, 1.5 miles for middle school pupils, and 1.7 miles for senior high students. He said it made no sense to have two policies for junior and senior high pupils since they will all go to the same building.
Larcomb told the audience at the beginning meeting, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
He said he worked this spring with a committee to get the levy passed after its defeat last November. Larcomb said the committee was "very fluid, very dynamic. I couldn't begin to thank all the folks."
Still, he and the board gave certificates of thanks to three people, Carole Sutton, Stephanie Linder and Dennis Niederhiser. Larcomb did not say how the three contributed to the victory.
wilkinson@vindy.com